debris fell into the sea as far away as the philippines. many in the u.s. and elsewhere were taken by surprise. the last time north korea tried to launch was april which ended in an embarrassing failure. to chris lawrence our pentagon correspondent, chris, the u.s. officials do they have any doubts that this is for real? >> reporter: don f they did, those doubts are quickly disappearing. i just got off the phone with a u.s. official who confirmed to me that the on object north korea put into space is still? or bit and the officials are going through final calculations to confirm whether it was indeed a satellite, as north korea claimed. regardless of that, it is confirmed that north korea did successfully go through three stages of this rocket, which is a jump in technology for them. this is the type of rocket that has the range to hit areas in alaska or u.s. bases in hawaii. so there is, you know, some concern over this success by north korea, don. >> so chris, how worried are pentagon officials again about the successful launch? you said there is some suc